Penance
by B. Cavis

Penance
by B. Cavis

The room is cold when he enters, and he even as he toes his shoes off and hangs up his coat he can feel the frost radiating from the woman in the easy chair. Her legs are crossed delicately, black heels strapped around her ankles like tentacles of dark, leather, lust. She always wears the shoes. He's never asked why, and she's never volunteered the information.

Besides, for him to ask that question would be to presume that he has the right to know or expect and answer, and that simply isn't true. He reminds himself of this repeatedly as he makes sure his coat is secure-- it helps to keep repeating it when they start. If he makes himself think like Robert, he becomes Robert.

And Robert is who he needs to be right now.

How would Robert approach this, he asks himself silently. How would Robert approach finding his Mistress like this? Sitting, cool and annoyed. What would he do?

...Bobby licks his lips and tries hard to tare his eyes away from her ankles. He loves her legs. He wants nothing more than to walk up to her, take a leg in each hand, and pull her open, burying his face in her and making her grip his hair and dig her nails into his scalp. To make her beg and thrash and moan and come.

He takes a deep breath and searches for clarity and strength, and finds just enough of both to keep himself in check.

Yes. If he went over to her right now he could give her an incredible orgasm. He could do it, he’s sure. It would be all too easy to slip his tongue into her pussy and undo her. She’d be desperate and thrusting into his face in a minute flat.

But that’s not what tonight is here for.

He knew what it would mean if he came to her tonight. What she would give him if he came to her tonight. After the waltz they just danced together-- a farce that was too real to be comfortable-- he knows exactly what is going to happen. Tenderness isn’t possible. Him retaining control isn’t probable.

He’s not allowed to have any kind of control when they play this game.

She’s reading the newest copy of Vogue, flipping through glossy scented pages with one finger. Her hair is thrown back over her shoulders, neck bared and skin pale and perfect. There’s a red bite mark on her right clavicle. He tore into her the last time they were together, and she’d arched towards the sharp pain his teeth caused her. He’d been ridiculously contrite after wards, laving the wound with his tongue, before realizing that he had a first aid kit and stumbling into the bathroom. She had laughed when he had tried to “dress her wound” and thrown the kit to the floor, before thoroughly distracting him from her injuries and giving him a few of his own.

His back still bears the teasing red scrapes from her nails.

He has a feeling he’s not getting away with just fingernail wounds tonight.

She doesn’t look up from her magazine, and he undoes his tie as well. She doesn’t like to have anything holding him in. The belt goes next, followed quickly by the socks.

When he is finished, dressed in his unbuttoned shirt, undershirt, and pants, he takes a deep breath and jumps feet first into what they’ve created tonight.

She doesn’t acknowledge him-- a reminder that in this state, she has the right to simply ignore him all night. He feels a sharp pang in his chest at the thought; in this mindset, being without her truly is a punishment. Never mind his every day dependence on her; right now, the absence of her makes his entire being throb in agony and his stomach clench up tight.

Mistress, he thinks to himself, and takes another deep breath.

He keeps his eyes trained carefully on the floor, hands linked at the small of his back, posture upright and correct. She flips a page, clears her throat, and says nothing. He doesn’t dare look up at her. He doesn’t dare do anything right now.

To look up would be presumptuous. It demands her attention-- making eye contact, and he has no right to demand anything. That is what he gives up on nights like this. That is the responsibility that he shifts from himself onto her, and that is the right that she accepts with open arms and strong resolve. She doesn’t let him treat this like a joke, and she does him the same courtesy.

Which is why, even after five minutes of simply standing with his eyes on the floor and his Mistress in front of him, quiet and not looking at him, Bobby forces himself to stay absolutely still. Forces his arms and legs not to shake, forces his jaw not to tremble. He keeps himself steady and he keeps himself strong, but it takes oh so much out of him to do it.

What if she sends him away tonight?

The thought breaks over him and nearly takes his feet out from underneath him. God, could she do that to him? He knows that it’s a practice, of course. He remembers in that vague way that he remembers all things that aren’t happening in the here and now when he’s in the mental space. She doesn’t like him to think too much-- he has to trust her to make the decisions for the both of them, or else he’ll try and top from the bottom, and that’s something she doesn’t allow.

Still… Could she send him away? Tell him to leave? She wouldn’t do that, would she? He hasn’t offended her that much, has he? He knows that she’s pissed-- when she’s happy to see him there is no doubt in his mind. She smiles, she grins, she offers him those beautiful words of praise and appreciation that he lives and dies for.

She hasn’t smiled at him. She hasn’t whispered that he is so pretty with his head down and his body straight like that.

She just sits.

So yeah. Alex is pissed.

Still, he tells himself, he has to keep in mind who they both are. No matter what she calls him or what title he bestows upon her, they are still the same beings at their core. They are still Alex and Bobby.

Still partners. Still lovers. Still friends. Still… the same. She loves him. She wouldn’t do that to him-- she knows his issues with abandonment, she wouldn’t do that.

…At least, he really, really hopes she wouldn’t do that.

What if she does, wails a little voice in his head. What if she cuts me lose? What if she doesn’t want me anymore? What if…

He pauses, eyes closing, and Alex turns a page in silence.

He’s thinking. He’s thinking and he’s worrying and he’s contemplating things that he has given up the right to contemplate. If she wants to send him away, she has that right. He has given her that right.

What he’s doing right now-- that isn’t something he has the right to do. That is something… bad.

The tension leaves his shoulders, and his mouth relaxes. The mind space has come for him, or he has gone searching for it, but either way it is upon him now. He has it now. It has him now. He is there.

Alex lifts the magazine off of her lap as he takes the two steps towards her, falls to his knees, and rests his head in it’s customary place on her right knee. Her lips curl up at the edges, slight but true, and he keeps his eyes down because he doesn’t want to look anywhere else.

Her hand rests on his head. The pressure of her on him feels… wonderful. Real. Stable.

They stay like that for a long while, Alex flipping calmly through her magazine as he breathes in the smell of her to soothe himself. She smells like baby powder and soap. It’s the smell of home.

Alex closes the magazine, puts it on the table next to them, and takes a deep breath. “We are going to have to have a talk, Robert.”

He swallows. The first time is always the hardest. “Yes, Mistress.”

She nods quietly at the title in satisfaction. Good boy, her hand on his scalp whispers. “I’m not feeling up to dealing with you right now. You did some serious harm today, do you understand that, Robert?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Her hand is cool against his cheek. “Look at me.”

He forces his eyes up to hers, knowing that this is the only time he’ll be allowed to meet her eyes tonight and bathe in the love in them. Alex pours her adoration, her dedication to him from her pupils, and he soaks it all in to add to his reservoir. It is going to get him through tonight. It is going to keep him grounded and safe.

It is all he is allowed tonight. It is a gift from his lover. From his Mistress. And that is more important than being safe or grounded.

"I want you to go into the bedroom," she says quietly, "and lay down, face first on the bed. You will be naked when I get in there, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"You may not play with yourself," she warns. "And you most definitely may not come. You're in for a ride tonight, Robert. And by the time it's over, I will be much more inclined to look at you without snarling. That is all the reward you deserve and it is more than you have the right to expect, isn't that right?"

"Yes Mistress."

"Who are you?"

"Robert." God yes.

"And who do you belong to?"

Shivers crawl up his skin and eat him alive. He is shaking, and he can't stop and he doesn't want to. This is what he needs. This is what he craves. "You, Mistress."

"Good boy. Go."

He goes. His shirt is folded neatly and placed on the window sill, followed by his pants and his boxers. The undershirt, his last bit of armor, is the last to fall to the floor, and when he folds it, he feels more naked and more exposed than he would have if he had just undressed when he came in. Taking it piece by piece extends the actions. Extends the feelings.

The bed is clean sheeted and smells faintly of her detergent. The comforter on top has already been removed, so he climbs onto it and lowers his face to rest on the bed, eyes closing automatically from the feeling of sliding into bed. His cock is hard and uncomfortable underneath him, and he shifts carefully.

He is going to have to deal with more than enough pain tonight. He doesn't need more to distract him from it.

He lies there for how long, he doesn't know. He has no sense of time when he's here. It could be an hour or ten minutes, but it doesn't really matter. The apartment is still and quiet. He hasn't heard any noise coming from her or the sound of her shoes on the floor. Often, oh so often, he uses it as his warning bell. As the alarm to signify either great release or great tension being enforced upon him.

He has the feeling she's figured that out. He has a feeling that tonight, she doesn't want him any more comfortable than absolutely necessary. She's taken her shoes off.

Her voice comes from the doorway, clear and crisp, and his cock swells at the sound of her using that tone. "You look so pretty lying there," she purrs. "No one would ever be able to tell what a disobedient, disrespectful, dangerous little bastard you are."

She moves farther into the room, and when he listens really hard he can hear her feet slapping on the floor and the silk of her pajama pants rubbing together. She is breathing steadily; that frightens him. A calm Alex is a dangerous Alex, and that danger carries over when she becomes his Mistress.

Yelling releases anger. Being quiet makes it boil and burn and swell.

"You did something today that was so incredibly stupid that your hide deserves to be tanned and thrashed until you're bleeding and raw." He swallows. "I watched you walk around all day and I wanted you to be limping. I wanted you to be in as much pain as I was." The bed dips, and he feels her straddling his butt, the knees on either side of him deliciously bare. When did she lose the pants? "And I couldn't do a thing, darling. Not a single thing. But now it's my turn. Lift your head up."

He does, and his entire body shivers when the soft, slick silk of her favorite scarf (and his-- she once spent an entire day walking around the apartment in nothing but said scarf) wraps around his eyes, pulling tight but not too tight, and ties behind his skull. No more vision. One of his most important sense gone.

He tries to comfort himself with the fact that he can still hear her and smell her. It's not very comforting.

"You hate having one of your senses taken away, don't you?" she murmurs to him, and he swallows.

"Yes Mistress."

"I know. What's your safe-word?"

"Monet."

"Good boy. I'm taking away your sight for the night." She makes sure the knot is tight and that he is completely blinded, before pushing his head back to the bed and resuming her position on his butt. He tries to remember how important breathing is, and his cock presses harder against the cotton sheets.

A small clinking sound comes off to his left, and he tilts his head towards it to try and better grasp the world around him, but she pulls on his hair, hard, and he remembers himself.

"I'm sorry, Mistress."

"You should be. Not just for that, you understand, Robert. We are going to talk about what you did today, and how incredibly foolish and reckless it was." She strokes her palms over his back, as if trying to clean him with the pressure and motion of her hands, and he sighs deeply into the sheets. "Today," she says, with the air of someone starting a long speech, "you allowed yourself to become a target.

"Today, you put yourself in front of a crazy woman and made yourself her focus. You became a potential victim. In spite of what I was telling you to do, what Deakins and Carver were telling you to do, you made yourself a blip on her radar screen."

He swallows. This is wrong-- this addition of their professional life into their personal life. They've always made that distinction-- what happened at work stayed at work and what happened at home stayed at home. She shouldn't be brining this up, something inside of him screams. No, no, no, this is bad. This is against the rules...

The rules. The ones that say that she can make him do anything she wants unless he pulls out the one word that'll make her stop. Unless he says it, she has every right to do exactly what she's doing now, and a million other things.

He tells himself that this is no more invasive, no more painful, than the one time in their relationship that she has actually whipped him (with only half of her arm behind it and an uncomfortable shift in her hips that displayed her own dislike to the crude violence), but even he doesn't believe him.

She leans down suddenly, biting down hard on his shoulder and growling at him angrily. He hisses, hips rising off of the bed quickly at the pain, the pain, the pain which so quickly melts away into the bittersweet taste of pleasure. She sucks, hard, and he is aware that his heart is beating strong and rapid in his throat and now in a new wound.

"I like your pretty hide too much for you to damage yourself," she snarls at him. "I am the only one who has that right. That's what you did when you signed yourself over to me. You gave me and me alone that right. It's mine!" And now her voice has pure fury in it. He swallows, and she pushes against his back to force him face down again. "Stay still, Robert, or I swear to God I am going to do something to you to have you screaming and limping for weeks."

He swallows and forces himself down onto the mattress again, flattening himself out. The low coil of guilt in his stomach, something that has been building slowly all day long, is starting to loosen. Penance. Penance means forgiveness comes eventually.

He needs it. Need that absolution. Needs it from her and her alone.

She settles back down, breathing deeply for a long time, before he feels her relax a fraction. "I am not going to tie you down tonight, Robert. Instead, I am going to sit on your back. If you throw me off, I won't be able to stop you. You are bigger than me. In fact, if you throw me off, I have no doubt that I will be severely injured in the process."

And, of course, that alone is going to keep him still and steady and more tightly bound than anything she could tie around his wrists and ankles. Which is exactly why she is doing it, he knows.

"I want an apology, Robert. Several, actually. Your only words tonight are 'I'm sorry, Mistress.' Do you understand. Nod, now. Good boy." She sounds marginally pleased with him. His cock is throbbing angrily against the sheets, and he blows out through tightly pursed lips.

He hears something shake. Salt? That's the salt shaker she inherited from some Great Aunt or another. It looks like a swan, and she hates it for how gaudy it is, but doesn't have enough hatred for it to go out and buy another one. He feels the tickling sensation of the salt crystals landing on his back, coating his skin in a thin sheet of mock snow. He tries not to shift, tries not to flinch.

But when she takes that first piece of ice out of the bowl next to her and rests it in between his sshoulder blades half on and half off the ice, he can't help himself. His hands clench fifistfulsf the sheets, mouth opening in a gasp, body tense. The cool touch of ice is like soft glass, almost soothing.

The cool touch of ice on top of salt is like frozen fire running across his nerve endings. Like wet pain in a cube of solid water. The silk is cool and clean against his eyes, and he makes a soft whining noise in the back of his throat as he tries to block the noise from coming out of his mouth. She shifts on his butt, hands coming down to rest on his hipbones, keeping her balance. She doesn't say anything to comfort him or stop the noises he's making. God, why won't she say something to comfort him and stop the noises he's making?

He feels the cool streams of water make their way down his sides, up around his neck, and the sensation suddenly clears, but the burn remains. He swallows thickly, trying not to think about the bite of frigid pain in between his sshoulder blades and breathes in.

Slowly.

Alex takes a soft washcloth and slowly, firmly, wipes the cool water off of his skin, warming his skin as she brings it back to life.

And then the next ice chip ddescendson him, this time entirely on the salt covered part of his back, and he cries out hard and violently at the sensation. Salt lowers melting points. Or does it raise it? God, who can be expected to think-- thinking is bad, and so is this woman, and so is he, and Oh God why didn't he just buy her flowers like most normal guys do when they screw up?

His cock is wet against his stomach. He's leaking pre-cum. Oh God, why the hell does he get off on this and why the hell did he have to tell her this and why the hell does she have to be such an enthusiastic participant?

The ice turns to water and dribbles down his ribs. Alex wipes the water away, and he presses his cock into the bedsheets when her warm, wet tongue descends upon the red and raw skin. Damndamndamndamn...

Two more, he calculates. Just two more pieces, because judging by how far apart she put those pieces, she only has room for two more on his back. He gyrates his hips into the mattress, and she purrs cheerfully from above him, sounding happier with her lot already.

"What's your line, Robert?"

She picks another piece of ice out. He can tell because her hand leaves for a moment, and there's no where else it could be going. He swallows and forces the words out. "I'm sorry, Mistress."

"Again," she orders, and he starts to comply because there is nothing else to be done.

And there's the ice. He moans and cries and wails underneath it. Underneath her delicious torture and pleasure and his head thrashes against the sheets. He grinds his hips down against the bed and forces himself not to buck. Don't hurt her, he whispers to his baser self, who nods and sits quietly in the corner. Waiting.

He will never hurt her.

He can't say the same about her. But he likes the pain she gives him. A whole lot more than he probably should, but there it is.

"I'm sorry, Mistre-ssssssss," he chokes out as the next piece of ice comes down upon him and his entire body becomes focused on the feeling of a thousand pin pricks on a space of flesh no bigger than his thumb, unrelenting and hard. He can feel something slick and sticky wet against his bare ass. Alex is rubbing herself on him, rubbing herself to completion. He tenses his ass up, giving her just a bit more pressure exactly where she needs it, and she lets out a little sigh in appreciation.

He is on fire. He is freezing. He is both, and there is nothing he would rather be than this delicious contrast.

"I'm sorry, Mistress," he gasps. "I'm sorry, Mistress. I'm sorry, I'm sorreeeee..."

The water drips down his sides, ticking his waist, and he moans as she rubs the salt away with the washcloth, and then laves his skin with her tongue. He did it, he survived her test, he survived his penance. It's better now. He feels better now-- so much so. No more knot in his stomach, no more pain in his throat, just... bliss.

His cock is still hard against his stomach. She lifts off his ass, and his hopes perk up. He's done with his punishment. Now she rides him. Every time he messes up and she has to punish him, she does is hard and without hesitation, but after wards she reinforces the lesson positively. She fucks him.

He loves his lessons.

And he is waiting for her bark, her order to turn over, with bated breath. And he is completely undone when she sticks her fingers in between his ass cheeks and slips a final piece of ice into his anus.

"Roll over, Robert," she orders as he tilts his head back and wails out to the ceiling what he's feeling. He bites his cheek for purchase and throws himself onto his back. Cool hands rip the silk off of his eyes, freeing him entirely, and his first vision of the night is of his Mistress lowering herself onto him, forcing his cock inside of her with steady persistence.

He breathes in through his nose, sharply as she slams down all the way, and she looks down at him with that power that he loves to see on her alight in her eyes. Her hands grip at her own neck, rubbing and rolling, and when she lifts herself up and thrusts back down upon him, she shakes her head quickly.

"No," she says, and rolls off of him, abandoning his cock, and snaps at him. "Fuck me," she orders, legs spread wide, flat on her back. "I'm sick of doing work."

He scampers into position and presses a hand on her abdomen to keep her steady. The ice in his asshole jiggles, and a bit of it melts down his thigh as he parts her open with the head of his cock, pressing forward until she makes that sound in the back of her throat that lets him know he's filled that void in her just about perfectly.

He groans when he starts to thrust. She just shakes.

He knows why she chose this position to finish in-- whenever he thrusts into her, his ass clenches around the ice, leaving him feeling deliciously penetrated, deliciously fucked, and his entire body is quivering with the feeling of the wicked little lump of ice up his butt.

She drags her nails over his back, hitting his raw patches, and he hisses even as his hips go faster. She is so incredibly wet. Wetter than the ice in his ass, than the memory of it on his back, than the dried tears on his face. She is thick and hot and juicy, and he pushes into her as hard as he can, as fast as he can, and doesn't think about anything else but the warmth and the pressure of this woman beneath him.

Alex. Alex. Alex. Mistressssss...

He gasps for breath and help as he comes, body tensing and fingers digging painfully into her hips. She forces a hand beneath them, touches her clit with the tip of her nail, and with a few choice flicks of the wrist, she dissolves around his rapidly softening cock like cotton candy on his tongue.

She opens her thighs wide to cradle him when he falls against her, and the smell of the crook of her neck takes him in hand and tries to lead him off to bed. He swallows and feels his eyes growing heavy.

"Love you," he whimpers, and the hand that strokes his head is gentle but firm.

"I know, baby," she says back. "I love you too."

He nods, and her soft touch rubs his wounds until he slips into the arms of unconsciousness and is taken in by Morpheus for repair. He sleeps, safe in the embrace of his Mistress.

Of his Alex.

And all is okay with his world.

FIN